ralph nader, welcome back to democracy now!talk about this latest news about what looks like now the criminal investigation into general motors. >> a criminal investigation is certainly warranted. general motors knew about the defect in 2004. they kept getting feedback of fatalities, crashes, airbags not going off, engines been shut off and the subsequent years they covered it up and did not report it to the department of transportation audit safety agency -- auto safety agency. they did not even notify the ceo january 31 of this year. that is the pattern that fits the predicate for criminal prosecution, which i understand the u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york is now pursuing. but what this whole tragic episode reveals, amy, is not just layers of bureaucracy in general motors that prevent serious problems from going to the decision-makers arguing for recall, but it also shows the ineptitude of the national traffic safety administration in the department of transportation that knew about this years ago, did not

all righty. >>> let's get reaction now to this from ralph nader. long-time consumer advocating actually owns the stocks. he's also the author of the new book "unstoppable." mr. nader, thank you for coming on. i presume you heard the senator here. what's your reaction? >> well, first, the real bill of johnson press release so we don't know all the details. from what we do know a lot of the reforms can be done with the existing fannie mae and freddie mac structure. the two companies are making a lot of money. they exude stability for the real estate industry. they are projected to make a lot of money. they know how to do their business. they can be reformed into a public utility model and still protect the shareholders. i don't think this bill is going anywhere because unless the powerful real estate lobby and the housing lobby back it, it's dead in the water. >> you haven't joined the lawsuit of some of the other large shareholders have you? >> no. >> why not? >> because they're carrying the weight on this and they're paying their lawyers. so it woul

the green party guru, ralph nader. e announced the potential presidential run, ralph the mouth wrote a column. he september a letter to sanders slamming the way the senator handles the progressive activities. ralph nader is in no position to offer the political confrontation. it amounted to one thing. this guy. >> no connection between 9/11 and iraq. >> yeah. >> the perceptions more than any one of those points is the administration is not straight. >> i disagree. >> you are working hard to put food on your family. >> the question was asked is our children learning. >> i call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. thank you. now watch this drive. >> the good old days. ralph nader doesn't know how to run for office. he knows how to ruin it. if ralph nader will listen to his advice, he can keep on pretending. that are powered by thmoon. ♪ she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. ♪ my mom wo

so who is ralph nader tied in with? >> well the center for automotive safety is basically a lobbying firm for, it lobbies for, product liability lawyers. it's a it's a special interest group tied in with them. not to say that their points are not valid. just to say they have their interests. gm has its own interests and, you know, we need to have a better answer here. we need an independent investigator into this. someone outside of the government, someone outside of the cas, someone outside of general motors. gerri: a great point. i don't know who that is going to be. congress wants to do it but i don't know that they have the expertise. >> no, i don't think they do. gerri: thanks for coming on, todd, great to meet you. thanks for being with us tonight. appreciate your expertise. >> thank you, gerri. gerri: well, from the road to the sky, airlines getting more and more creative in nickel and diming passengers with fees. here with ways to avoid the fees, the found irof air fare watchdog.com. george, welcome back to the

liz: we'll ask ralph nader, who made his name fighting for auto safety. don't miss this interview. ♪ [ male announcer ] what if a small company became big business overnight? ♪ like, really big... then expanded? ♪ or their new product tanked? ♪ or not? what if they embrace new technology instead? ♪ imagine a company's future with the future of trading. company profile. a research tool on thinkorswim. from td ameritrade. david: apparel stocks getting roughed up today again. liz: back to nicole petallides. she is on the floor of the new york stock exchange trying on some names for size. nicole. >> trying on for size but all down arrows here for these retailers. we've been focusing on this story and we're hearing it once again. today express came out. this is popular retail wert young folks and young adults. they came out and cited very same thing. talked about the winter weather, shorter holiday season. warning going forward. that is to the downside, and they joined, express joins lululemon, american eagle outfitters, the gap, all noting winter weather, kno

that is the first thing that ralph nader ever said that i agree with.ne more and jim clinton takes credit for srplus. he people forget was the republicans who control the house and the senate. basically like alternators id. >> yes, we have been talking about this. so what about political monopolies, we have the same politicians who have taxes for funding, time and again come back into fice. we have talked about this since e nixon administration. they have been around since the reagan and the nation. so wis there a political monopoly and where is the third independent party voice. we don't have that yet in the united states and it's costing us. >> what why do they all have to be piticians? what is wrong with going out out of that one. neil: in the meantime, finally a crazy tweet fro one of our followers. my older sister regina tolde when i was little, i was six or seven years old, and they punched a 12-year-old in the days and he was booing her. >> yes, i read tweet. i had no idea i did this. it was on my stuff, it had been bullying her and pulling her h

and i'm going to quote ralph nader, who once said that that's not a laugh line, you people. there's a rowdy crowd here. ralph nader once said, a society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. what do you say to that? >> you don't want to depend on charity for justice. charity is small. i mean, the private sector's like 90%, and government's like 9%, and philanthropy is less than 1%. there are things in terms of trying out social programs in innovative ways that government is just because of the way the job incentives work they're not going to try out new designs like philanthropy can and they're not going to have volunteer hours coming in to leverage the resources like philanthropy can. so philanthropy plays a unique role. it is not a substitute for government at all. when you want to give every child in america a good education or make sure they're not starving, that's got to be government because philanthropy isn't there day in and day out serving the entire population. it's just not of the scale or the design to do that. it's there to try out things,

remember ralph nader?problems -- >> how does he know about ralph nader and the corvair? he is too young. betty, the zeitgeist over the weekend when you were flying the surveillance jet back from singapore, the idea that elon musk is using every loophole under mankind. within your reporting, was he successful because the american taxpayer help him out? like that is generally the idea, getting by on government subsidies, but he is beat -- he is building beautiful cars that people in the upper echelons of society are buying. growing competitors, he is going against the likes of general whens and toyota and ford it comes to electric cars. the thing he is trying to do is build these stand-alone stores, right? he has been fighting with states throughout the country to get his stores approved. oni went to his store saturday morning. >> hang on, let me get to the news. over the weekend, governor cuomo in new york and tesla agreed to allow his stores to remain independent. >> i went to a tesla store on saturday mor

ralph nader wrote a book. this was 50 years ago.as about this >> which led to the creation -- >> exactly. it seems to be as much involved in this case as gm, or at least, gm found about this in 2001. in november 2 thousand four, they decided to open an investigation into it but they found it was too costly to do something about it. at this point, i am sure they wish they had done something. nothing is more costly than human lives. they then investigated this in 2007 and decided there was no basis. they looked at it again in 2009 and 2010 and again decided there was no basis for any real action. it seems they just play along with general motors in this. >> has this been handled in your opinion? what can we expect? >> when you look at this story, you have got to keep in mind this all happened at the old gm. pre-bankruptcy general motors. it was really a different company. this all happened before the u.s. government, before you and i in treasury had a majority stake and sold off. before she was ceo. while she has been at the really al

kicked it off with the corvair and their battle with ralph nader. that started mitzvah.hen they have a problem with side saddle tanks in their trucks causing explosions which is always unsafe. now this. a new position. >> as a company, it's not a new position. is interesting. we tend to think of general motors as this company that has a reputation for putting and-cutting before safety always fights against safety probes in washington with rick wagner and previous heels, so it's a new company. it went through the bankruptcy organization and was run by washington, d.c. for a while. now coming out the other side, it's new and the way mary has gmconded is different than owners responded in the past. she was very contrite and hired an outside investigator to look into these things. she's put a vice president in charge of these issues. >> she has apologized, and she's also been forthcoming with information that has not been flattering to general motors. >> which would not have been the case in the past. she's taken the bull by the horns in a different way and maybe general mot

i'm sorry, alan, another commentary we had this afternoon from a consumer activist, ralph nader, saying there has been a cover-up here. there needs to be an investigation. do you think there has been a cover-up? >> the preliminary information certainly seems to suggest that general motors should have recalled the car a lot earlier. now why they didn't and who the individuals were who were involved remains to be seen. the national highway traffic safety administration recently sent a very detailed special order to general motors with 107 items on it. essentially saying, what did you know and when did you know it and who were the individual involved? so i think the agency will make a very good effort to get to the bottom of this. gerri: that's interesting. now you worked for nhtsa. this kind of thing, how far up does it go? is this something that the ceo knows about, the board knows about, or is this middle management decision making? >> in this instance i don't know. you know we'll have to see what the evidence shows and what the documents showed. in my experience off the times they, off

>> when you have the first public apology by a general motors officer since the apology to ralph nader, absolutely. the thing is we're putting more and more complex electronics in into cars. we're going to self-driving car and at the heart of this defect are the electronics that trigger or don't trigger the airbag and a airbag should never fail. mary barra should step up to the plate and make the entire investigation public and nhtsa should investigate its own process to see why it missed the ball too. gerri: it announced an investigation i believe last week s that just covering its tracks? >> well, all too many of these investigations turn out to be a whitewash but if they make every single document, every single interview public, that's the way to go. and at the same time, we want to know what went on in these meetings with the nhtsa regulators, with the gm officials. why didn't those meetings result in a recall? >> clarence, i want to ask you this question because we hear this a lot from people who read a lot about this case. the problem comes when you have a key chain and you have

have this quote from watch this, from clarence dillow, runs the center for auto safety, that is ralph nader'sup. he is saying quote, they had more than enough information. they could have issued a recall as early as 2007. cheryl: we're now getting stories that go back as far as 2006 when there were crashes that were investigated and reported. here's what happen. the ignition switch turned. the airbags didn't deploy. people died. >> that's right. cheryl: those reports went up the food chain but again for some reason in twix -- >> that is such an important point made. gm will say, mary barra is expected to say that the information did not come up the corporate food chain. i have was not made aware of it. why did it take 13 years for them to do a recall recall? the other thing we're hearing, this is really important, that the center for auto safety study. they got the outside group, to study the federal government's own data which found there were 303 deaths related to airbags not deploying in recalled, recalled gm cars. so we'll be tracking this story and all throughout the hearings as well. ad

from the 2000 presidential election, when something like 6% of the people in florida voted for ralph nader for president, giving george bush enough electoral college votes to carry florida. a lot of people voted for green party candidates on the left side. after 2000, they learned their lesson. that indemonstrated 2006 when they supported blue dog democrats, not left-wing democrats. after that devastating loss in 2006 and in 2008, republicans made a comeback in 2010. won inty candidates those same swing districts for blue dog democrats -- where blue dog democrats had won. i was delighted to see that, but tea party candidates can't win in every district. the tea party has succeeded in shifting the republican party to the right in congress. this is not your father's oldsmobile in congress. that perfect tea party candidate is not the perfect candidate for every congressional district. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mike. to our panel. i'm going to start off with a question. the tea party is discussed as a noun, as though it is an entity that one may join and be a member. many candidates

and i'm going to quote ralph nader, who once said that that's not a laugh line, you people. there's a rowdy crowd here. ralph nader once said, a society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. what do you say to that? >> you don't want to depend on charity for justice. charity is small. i mean, the private sector's like 90%, and government's like 9%, and philanthropy is less than 1%. there are things in terms of trying out social programs in innovative ways that government is just because of the way the job incentives work they're not going to try out new designs like philanthropy can and they're not going to have volunteer hours coming in to leverage the resources like philanthropy can. so philanthropy plays a unique role. it is not a substitute for government at all. when you want to give every child in america a good education or make sure they're not starving, that's got to be government because philanthropy isn't there day in and day out serving the entire population. it's just not of the scale or the design to do that. it's there to try out things,

[inaudible] i wanted to ask you how you felt about ralph nader and ross perot the two of them got in there how things would be different and i will take, go off the air and get your response. >> guest: i assume what you're asking is my opinion about third-party candidates. obviously they have every right to do that that problem with the two-party system the kind of system we have if for example i was to support somebody running as a third party conservative in the national election that would aid the liberal democrat in the national election because we take votes away from probably the more moderate conservative running against them so the question is what do you want? do you want to make a point? you have every right to make that point and these candidates like ralph nader and the others have a right to make a point or do you want instead to try and move public policy in the way the country is governed in the direction that you believe it should be going in? in the two-party system that means that what you need to do it seems to me is in the final analysis after the primaries take b

you can go to our website democracynow.org for our interview with ralph nader from wednesday's broadcast. nader famously exposed safety flaws in gm vehicles five decades ago. and in new york city, at least seven people are dead, more than 70 wounded, and others remain missing after killing wall buildings in harlem collapsed in an explosion triggered by a gas leak. shatteredof the blast windows. another tragedy in texas where a suspected drunk driver drove into a crowd of people leaving a music event. at least two people were killed and more than 20 wounded. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> and i am juan gonzalez. welcome to our the sinners and viewers -- to our listeners and viewers around the world. a battle is heating up in new york city and state over the future of charter schools. new york city mayor bill de blasio recently blocked three privately run charter schools from using rent-free space inside public schools. the city also announced it will cut $210 million in charter school construction

i have to say, i read the famous ralph nader book from the 1960s about recalls and auto safety, and i thought i was fairly jaded and cynical. when you put all the facts together of this gm case, i came away shaking my head. i really can't believe this still happens. >> it's amazing. it's totally amazing. general motors covered this, in my view, for fine years. they knew people were dying. lawsuits were filed. great detail by the department. somebody in the company said, no, we're not going to do it and they sent bulletins to dealers, but that's it. they should be ashamed of themselves. i hope that the justice department criminal investigation will result in both jail time and in significant financial penalties for this company. >> let me ask you this, and then josh, i want to get your take on this. but, you know, there is this grisly business of calculating the value of a human life that anyone in the safety business has to go about, right? in some theoretical sense, if there was an auto glitch that had an expectation that it would take one life away and it would cost $40 billion to g

. >> you can go to our website to see our interview with ralph nader out general motors. the white house is reportedly delaying a vote on president obama's pick for surgeon general following congressional opposition to his advocacy of gun control. dr. murphy has come under criticism from the national rifle association for backing gun registration and an assault weapons ban. it apparently has prodded opposition from at least 10 senate democrats, several of whom are up for reelection. jay carney confirmed murthy won't face an immediate vote, saying the administration is recalibrating his strategy. the coalition of groups led by the american civil liberties union has filed suit against a new law in idaho that is the documentation of animal abuse and industrial farms. approved last month, the measure is part of a wave of so-called ag-gag loss a crackdown on those who secretly film or photograph harm to livestock. the suit claims the law is intended to "silence the undercover investigations and meaty covers i contribute a public debate about animal treatment and food safety."

politico is reporting on a letter to ralph nader sent to bernie sanders. g some advice for senator bernie sanders as he weighs a presidential bid. stop going it alone. nader urged attentional longshot candidate sanders to change the way he does business in the senate and to fill his " unfulfilled potential." nader wrote the vermont independent. without networking there are no strategies beyond speeches and amendments that go nowhere, an occasional hearing where you quitestion witnesses. a nader aide confirmed the letter sent to the senator who says he is "prepared to run for president and an unconventional campaign." who is aas, progressive that represents your views? caller: the president of the united states. thereason being, a, republican party seems to be out of touch. mainstream middle america. also, i look at what is going on in congress. the president proposed a jobs bill in his first term -- nothing. the second term -- nothing. i look at all he has put out. the republicans want to talk about benghazi, the irs. instead of getting down to the real iss

i want to ask how you feel about ralph nader, ron paul, and ross perot. there,ee of them got in things would be different. i will take my response off the air. guest: i assume what you are asking is my feeling about third-party candidates. they had every right to do that. the problem in the two-party system, the kind of system we i was to support somebody running as a third party conservative in the national election, that would in the liberal democrat national election. it would take votes away from the more moderate conservative running against him. the question is what do you want customer do you want to make a point? you have every right to make that point. or do you want to try and move public policy and the way the country is governed in the way you believe it should be going? in the two-party system, what you need to do is in the final analysis after the primaries, support the coalition closest to your values. host: the front page of your paper this morning, mr. keene. returns to find gop without backbone. he serves on the acu board. he regrets tha

congress and the safety officials they kicked it off with the corvair and their battle with route -- ralph nader. they had a problem with their tanks and trucks causing solutions. now this. it is interesting. we tend to think of general motors as a company that has a reputation for putting cost-cutting before safety. washington.ght in this is a new company. it was run by washington, d.c. for a little while. now coming out the other side, this is new. the way mary has responded is haverent than gm ceos responded in the past. she apologized. she hired an outside investigator. she put a vice president in charge of the issues. >> she apologized and has also been forthcoming with information and not flattering on general motors. >> she has taken the bull by the horns in a different way. general motors will show their colors in a real new company now than they have in the past. it cannot be good for their sales numbers. when consumers hear this, they do not want to buy the product. >> it is a recitation hit certainly. stay with me for a moment. ♪ elon musk might have no love for new jersey governor ch

ralph nader on the futur t

lesson from the 2000 presidential election when something like 6% of the people in florida voted for ralph nader for president. giving george bush be enough electoral college votes to carry florida. a lot fewer people voted for green party candidates on the left side. after 2000 they learned their election -- they learned their lesson. and they also demonstrated that in 2006 when they supported blue dog democrats. not left-wig democrats -- left-wing democrats who were able to give the democrats the majority in the house. after that devastating loss in 2006, another loss in 2008 with obama, republicans made a comeback in 2010. tea party candidates won in those same swing districts where blue dog democrats had won. i was delighted to see that. but tea party candidates can't win in every district. so the tea party has succeeded in shifting the republican party to the right and congress, this is not your father's olds mobile or congress, this is a much more conservative congress than we had during the bush administration thanks to the tea party. but that perfect tea party candidate is not the perfec

letter critical of his performance from the city from what long term progressive activist -- >> ralph naderlt bill narrowly failed on thursday, name one of the thee -- >> claire mccaskill. >> one of the three female senators to vote against it. this governor skipped cpac this week but his first 2014 ad in his reelection -- kate. >> scott walkers. >> air waves in wisconsin this week. this long time clinton family pal and a chief strategist in hilly clinton's -- jeff. >> mark pen. >> mark penn is correct. he'll joint microsoft this week. adding to the push family political dpien city -- jeff. >> land commissioner. >> that's correct. 300-point question. in a moment that his conserve tiff primary challenger likened to michael -- jeff. >> mat bevan. >> incorrect. you lose 300 points. mitch mcconnell brought a rifle on stage cpec and presented it whom? >> tom coburn. that changed the outcome of the game and kate wins it with 1400 points. jeff smith, the number one overall seed goes down in a close game with 1,000 and norm at 800. this was a very close game and that means, kate, that you are one s

book, one of our viewers has the spirit where is ralph nader when you need him?'s go to tom in pennsylvania. all, we need to change the stigma of these recalls. company, a software they would just say we have a new release and update to your car. press, i want the manufacturers to recall or update as many cars as possible. whenever they notice there's a problem, they say, we could do this better. what happens is, there is bad press and dad stigma. .hey are recalling cars the problems accumulate over time. let's get off the stigma that recalls are bad. recalls are good. we want the companies to, right off -- come off right up front. say, you had a defect before, let's get over that here it is a good thing. my question is, did the government withhold information until the treasury department was able to sell its stock off for $40 a share or whatever and it is now dropped off to the low 30's now? did they find this recall was going to come out, you know what i'm saying? >> yes. thank you for the call. >> i do not think they withheld information. i think they just di

distraught or disturbed societies and we have our own examples of that whether it's known chomsky or or ralph nader or cornell west all of them for getting up and speaking unpleasant truth have been pushed to the fringes of society and on the liberal class is as guilty maybe even more guilty than that stations like m s n b c which are utterly subservient to the democratic party and to the cult of barack obama have kept those voices from a so it's not just the right it's the left that are both trading in a kind of fultz reality and that's very dangerous because when you can't confront reality when your society shuts out those voices that seek to describe what reality is and how it works then you can talk about hope and you can talk about change because all hope and change is essentially redirected into a dead political process or redirected into fantasy i mean the idea that. barack obama is going to save us from wall street or from the drone wars or. from environmental degradation it's a bit like all those poor prisoners in the gulag or writing letters to uncle joe stalin and that is. symptomatic an

nader. that famous crusader for hedge funds. nader.ing is ralphup against a lot of people who view this from two different angles. one from the social good side saying leave it alone and one from the free-market side. and someone saying there is documents that matter and the rule of law matters here. outside of a bankruptcy court where a judge has a lot more discretion -- this is not a bankruptcy situation. >> is as a responsible to get in a trade that is so the laminated -- so dominated by local will echo -- political will? got the republicans with little interest in taking this on and the democrats not wanting to make it a full throated issue. they're hoping this will work its way through the courts faster than congress can act. it's dragging its feet on that is obama care like in size. and. redoing the entirety of u.s. housing is obama care like in size. >> i would bet on congress dragging its feet. >> it's a race to come to a decision first. after the courts have ruled for the government to come back and redo it, that's even tougher. >> can we